On why you should keep learning once you're done with school

When I first graduated from college, it was kind of nice to kick back and only focus on work and not having to constantly learn new things. While I did eventually break out and feel the need to learn more things, I’d recommend not ever letting yourself fall into this rut. There are many reasons why you should learn more, even if you aren’t in school anymore:

• Makes you a better employee/employer - Regardless of what your field is, learning more about it will enable you to be a more valued member of the field, giving you chances to show off how clever and knowledgeable you are. Learning more can help you to be more innovative in your job, gaining recognition and praise from coworkers and higher ups.
• Helps your career - As stated before, learning more will help you be a better employee. But it can also open up new job opportunities, promotions, and networking opportunities. Knowing more about your field makes you a better candidate for new positions in the field and enables you to do more tasks within one company.
• Makes you a more interesting person - Maybe you aren’t too interested in job-related learning. That’s okay. Regardless of what topic you pursue, learning more about any topic makes you a more interesting and diverse person - more fun to talk to, more enthusiastic about life and the world around you.
• Gives you different opportunities to connect with people - Along the same lines, learning more gives you opportunities to connect with more types of people. Because of my reading about music history, I’ve been able to connect in interesting ways with some interesting people - and talking about music is usually an enjoyable connection piece for me.
• Helps you find new interests/hobbies - Learning more about lots of things can help you find new things you’re interested in. In the past few years, I’ve picked up knitting and a fervent desire to know everything about tea. At the time, these were passing fancies, something that intrigued me that I wanted to learn a bit more about. Now, these are core hobbies for me. Choosing to learn a bit more about topics that sparked my interest has really worked out for me and it can work for you as well.
• Broadens your horizons - Often, the world can feel like such a small place, especially if you’re unable to travel much or get outside your comfort zone easily. Learning about something new (even if you just read a book on a topic you know nothing about) is an easy way to make your world a bit bigger and get outside your comfort zone a bit. When your world gets a little bigger, it gets a whole lot more interesting as well.
• Makes you feel more fulfilled - For me, this is the biggest motivation to learn more. Learning makes me feel happy and like I’m doing something with my time. Whenever I start getting anxious that I’m not doing enough with my time, taking a few minutes to learn about something new helps ground me and let me see that I am spending my time in productive ways.

If you need more motivation to learn more, check out this article and this article.

What motivates you to learn? What do you like learning about?